Watercolor Coloration Tutorial - Hair

Here comes part II of my Tutorial - this time hair coloration ^_^

2. Hair

First I have to say you can use watercolor pencils as well as watercolor cups. This version works for both ^_^

By the way, it also works with colored pencils, the technique is the same!

I worked with the watercolor cups on this one ...

First I put a really light color layer on it with a really thin brush (z.B. a Marabu brush, size 2).

Keep in mind to hint different hair strands, meaning single lines, some bigger, some thinner. 

It doesn´t matter if some lines are lighter or darker than others. Real hair is also not always the same color, they look different, depending on the exposure to light.

I always start with the hair tips and work my way up, at least I do that with the hair near the face.

Next, we do that all again. 

With every step the color becomes darker.

This step can be repeated as often as you wish to.

Depending on how dark the color is chosen, it is possible you only have to use one color tone for everything, because you can variegate the tone by using more color to make it darker or use more water to make the color lighter. The effect will be the same as if you where to use different colors.

In this pic I only used one color tone.

 

The lighter or white areas will be the light reflections later on, the darker areas the shadows.

The more you draw over the hair, be it with more color or water, the more reflexes you can add to them, or, as I had stated in my Skin Tutorial, the more transition you can make.

This transition also looks really good on the hair, just try what looks best in your eyes and use it.

When I am finished with the pic, meaning when I colored everything, I add some intricacies to the effects. I put white highlights  with white pastel chalk on it, that give more brilliance to the hair. 

The pastel chalk doesn´t suit everything and it also only works really good on watercolor paper due to its rough surface.

It doesn´t look that good on normal paper.

Colored pastel chalk on the other hand looks much better on normal paper. It is much smoother and you won´t carve out the grain as much as on watercolor paper (personally I don´t like it, when the grain is seen too much, I prefer it somewhat "smooth").